I’m in my last semester of my Bachelor’s in Organizational Leadership. I set out on this journey in Organizational Leadership about five years ago and haven’t looked back. That’s pretty amazing because I’ve been working on my Bachelor’s degree since I earned my Associate’s over 20 years ago, off and on. I’ve changed majors several times; business administration, finance, economics, all business related. Even tried to create my own degree based on all the various classes I had already taken. In less then two months I will finally be earning my degree and going on to graduate school in the fall. I will continue studying Organizational Leadership and Development in graduate school.
The road to my Bachelor’s, as confusing and indecisive as it has been, not to mention ridiculously expensive, is not what I want to talk about. My passion for Organizational Leadership and how I decided this was the right path for me is what I want to talk about. I’ve been in corporate America for over 20 years. During my time as a manager, I’ve had my own struggles motivating my teams. Sometimes you feel like you are doing all that you can and the employee just isn’t responding. It’s easy to blame the employee because you are the manager and you can’t force people to do their work. What’s the old saying, “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.” You may not be able to make the horse drink water, but you can motivate an employee into performance,
It wasn’t until I participated in my first leadership development program that I realized there is a big difference between telling an employee what they need to do and motivating them to perform. Northouse outlines some very distinct differences between a manager and a leader; whereas a manager is more focus on task related functions and a leader takes a more strategic approach and focuses on the people of the organization (Northouse, 2016). During my first leadership development program, we spent a lot of time on the motivational aspect of leadership. In particular, we focused on the Situational Approach. The Situational Approach takes different leadership styles and applies them to various needs of an employee in order to be able to motivate that employee (Northouse, 2016). For example, a new employee doesn’t know many people in the organization, doesn’t know where to find support resources, and likely doesn’t know the ins and outs of their job. This person would need more a more coaching style from his/her leader, which is more directive and more supportive style (Northouse, 2016). As that employee becomes more comfortable in the organization and in his/her role, he/she may need less support and less directive styles and possibly more autonomy and may be more motivated by a delegating leadership style (Northouse, 2016).
After leaving that first leadership development program, not only did I immediately begin to apply what I learned and observed the change in myself as a leader and the responsiveness of my employees; but I also started observing managers around me and their interactions with their teams. I saw managers that tend to want more control micromanage their fully capable and competent teams; and I saw those teams fall apart. I saw managers that were more hands-off, ignore the needs of their teams and I saw some of their team members struggle with what they needed to do and how to do it. Basically I saw managers managing based on their own styles and where they felt more comfortable and not taking into consideration the needs of their teams.
It was one manager on my team that made me decide my future. Karen was a mother hen. She took care of her team members as if she was their mother. She was overly supportive to all team members whether they needed it or not. She was very involved in every detail each of her team members had on their desks. She motivated her team with food, games and treats (not that there is anything wrong with this – actually quite the opposite but this is a topic for another blog). Essentially she treated all her employees equally regardless of what they needed. While this may have worked with her current team, as we looked to expand her team, she had difficulty retaining employees because the new employees felt like they couldn’t think on their own or weren’t trusted to make simple decisions.
Pulling out all my books and notes from the first leadership development program, I began coaching Karen on letting go and being able to allow some of her employees to be more autonomous. I coached her on assessing the individual needs of each of her employees and the different styles of leadership that could be applied in order to motivate her team. Obviously it was a struggle in the beginning because it meant that Karen had to let go of control, but eventually she started to see increased performance from her team and more creativity for solutions come out of her team. For me, I had a “wow, it actually works” moment. In managing Karen prior to the leadership development program, I took a more delegating approach because she was a manager and I felt a manager didn’t need me to tell them what to do. After the leadership development program, I took on a more supporting leadership style with Karen. I approached this cautiously. Karen as a manager and as a more controlling person wouldn’t want someone to tell her what she needed to do; she would be more receptive to a supporting style where I listened to her challenges and gave her feedback (Northouse, 2016). In a way, it was higher directive where my feedback was guidance towards what she needed to do to change without being direct…..if that makes sense.
It was my interaction with Karen that made me decide that I no longer wanted to see good managers be bad leaders. Even if they don’t become the best leaders, I wanted to at least give them the tools and information they needed to be able to better motivate their teams. I continued taking leadership development programs at work but that wasn’t enough. I finally found the direction I had been looking for in my formal education. I changed my degree, yet again, and now in less than two months I will be graduating with my Bachelor’s in Organizational Leadership and Development. But that isn’t enough, I will be continuing on in my formal education of leadership development in graduate school and there will be a career change in my future so I can focus on what I really enjoy doing, coaching and developing people.
References
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
aek5366 says
Thank you very much for sharing your post. I most certainly can relate being on my last semester of B.S. in Organizational Leadership. It was a windy route for me to decide on a major, and it feels good to be here and have a renewed vision of the world around me and the place within it. I see eye to eye with you on that. The pay off is immense and I am starting to see positive changes in every aspect on my life.
It was interesting to see what brought you to the degree. I want to share a bit of my experience here as well. I was working in health care and saw a lot of clients in my clinic. I realized that I had a gap in my ability to effectively communicate to my clients the importance of self-care, the necessity to be responsible for their own health and well-being, especially taking in consideration the limited time frame I had to operate within. During the treatment session I had difficulty communicating the reason why I was doing what I was doing. I was not able to communicate what I was trained to do in a duration of the session. The next logical step for me was simple, I had to learn.
123 credits later I am here. While I have not been practicing for duration of my degree, so that I can focus on my studies, I feel I am prepared now to create a positive change. I am a much better listener, I evaluate situations much more effectively and therefore able to respond to the world in a more customized way. World Campus has also taught me a lot about myself as I am mostly responsible to myself and in charge of my own self and my actions. Research and expertise of excellent people have also become a part of my knowledge base. The faculty lit the way. The people I meet are a new book to me. We write the story together.
I can only be happy that you found the path that resonates with you and you choose to continue the journey of leadership. All the best and tread lightly.